Lower Willamette, 4-14-13, Portland OR, sturgeon fishing

Hey All,

I had not posted a report in a while so I thought that since I had a good day I would share.

I had not been out in a month and I was anxious to hit the water. I was anchored up and fishing by 8am. I knew the outgoing did not start until around 10am but I figured the fish should still be pretty active anyway. 2 hours and 4 moves later and I had not even gotten a bite yet. I was starting to feel pretty desperate.

I made my 5th move back to where I started the day. I was still marking a ton of fish (same as at the start of the day) but the good news was that they had started feeding. I threw out my anchovy without a lot of confidence and then felt that familiar tap, tap, tap. I reeled up to set the circle hook and had a nice fish on. It ended up being a really nice keeper in the 4 foot range. What a great first fish!

I now felt really good. I rebaited and tossed back out. A few minutes later another tap, tap, tap. I set the hook again and this time the drag just started ripping off my reel! Oh, yeah. This is a big fish.



After a tough 23 minute fight I was able to finally wrestle this ~6.5 footer to the side of the yak.



There were quite a few sea lions around today so I only took a quick pick of the oversized, dragged her for a few feet to resuscitate her and then let her go.

Next fish was another big keeper in the 4’ range. Then a few minutes later I hooked another big fish. After about a 10 minute fight I was able to get this 5 footer to the boat.



So, my first 4 fish were 2 oversized and 2 big keeper sized. I have never had a day start like that! I ended up with 18 sturgeon before I ran out of bait. 2 oversized, 6 keepers and 10 shakers. About 1/2 the shakers were near bottom end legal, the other 1/2 were dinks. The other keepers I caught were in the low 40s.

The bite was so good once it started I did not get to eat lunch. There were tons of jumpers all day long. Water temp was 47-48. I did see one salmon caught by a fur bag - none by humans. The sea lions were around me all day so I tried to do most of my fighting pretty inconspicuously. That worked since even though I fought many of the fish near them, they never came over to investigate.

I posted this next pic on another thread, but I liked this guy. He just sat there most of the day and never bothered me.



With my last anchovy I caught this nice keeper:



After that I decided to just go home rather than staying to torment the bass. When I got home my wife met me in the garage and asked how my day went. She assumed I came home early because I was having a bad day - I have never left early on a good day before in my life. I told her I came home because I ran out of bait. She gave me a huge smile and said that is not a bad thing

I showered ran to the store and bought some steaks and red wine for dinner. What a great end to a wonderful day of fishing on the river.

18 dino's ... what a great day!

Congrats

Nice day for sure! Thanks for the pics and story.  Always is a nice thing when you actually run out of bait because the fishing was so good!

EPIC day, thanks for sharing, 18 sturgeon in one day, i need to head north, cameron

18 sturgeon is about how many I've caught my whole life...

18 sturgeon is about how many I've caught my whole life...

18 more then me 

Awesome Report dude. Pretty sure I haven't read many 18 sturgeon reports In a while 

AWWWSOME!!  this is the first Sturgeon report i've ever read that the fisherman "ran out of bait" with 18 of them caught.....usually i'm loading all the leftover bait onto the last hailmary casts of the day.
CONGRATS on a day that will be hard to beat.= thanks for the pics-N-'port!

That was a Great Read. Im just still tryna process wat I just read and saw!!...WTG bro. that's Epic big time!..

All I can say is WOW! Thanks for taking the time to post, it was worth it to us for the read.
It seems you know what you're doing.

Thanks guys. A great deal of my success comes from the fact that up here sturgeon are really plentiful and school tightly this time of year. Sunday was an exceptionally good day, but I have read posts from power boaters getting 40 or 50 to the boat (for a few rods).

Here is a screen grab (pardon the interference from other sonars nearby) of what can happen with the sturgeon up here in the winter.



I am not sure what the suspended fish were, but the bottom fish are all sturgeon. This is from a little while back and is the densest I have seen packed. Obviously the whole river is not like this, but there are quite a few spots that pack them in like this. On Sunday the sonar did not look this good but I was marking a lot of fish.

And I'm still thinking, Wow sturgies in clear water, 18 what a kick! Thanks for sharing.

DAMMM  pdxfisher - aka the - Sturgeon master

Reads like something from another planet. AWESOME!!!!!!!

Reads like something from another planet. AWESOME!!!!!!!

Not another planet, just another state

Wow...18 Dino from kayak in 1 day..that must be a record.  Thanks for sharing your experience pdxfisher.